Road Home Made Trailer

[Mur Huwcun]

That reads like you're considering the back end of a rigid truck for a chassis?
Don't do it. It will twist everywhere, and you will struggle to get an engineer to calculate the strength for the weight plate etc as you won't know what grade steel it is.
Make it from scratch, new box section is very cheap and you can have exactly what you want - it won't work out any cheaper. I've cut down an artic trailer and built one from scratch (both builds are on here somewhere) and the scratch build was a better job and probably worked out cheaper and definitely better.

I’ll echo this, if you want a cheap trailer to do a job for few years then use a truck chassis. If you’re going to start altering it and need a proper job for next 20 years then buy two lengths of box section or C channel (both will need building slightly different to achieve same rigidity) and build it once. We have both and I’ve built both. The truck chassis trailer took longer and a lot of fiddling and still looked like exactly what it was, a truck with drawbar on!!! The built from scratch bale trailer is still here and looks like a proper trailer. What you really want but they’re getting really scarce now is a tandem axle artic unit on steel suspension. Cut along bottom of I beam above axles salvaging the pivots, hangers and stay bars etc then tack on two offcuts along side the hangers to keep them all in line and at correct spacing and chop the old chassis out. You can do it with tape measure aswell but takes a bit more fiddling.

 

[Barleycorn]

Merrick Loggin from Bicester made many trailers out of lorry chassis's, we have one that used to be a silage trailer until we tipped it over one time too many and the body twisted. Scrapped the body and put a 24' flatbed on it. Bombproof trailer.

 

[Xiaomi]

How much is converting air to hydraulic braking?

 

[Mur Huwcun]

How much is converting air to hydraulic braking?

depends if you want to retain the air braking aswell. Combine Hydraulic and air actuators are available to bolt straight on to where the air chambers were or just hydraulic kits are available. Budget about £50 per corner for hydraulic only, to retain the air it depends what’s already there in terms of pipes and load sensing valve etc

 

[essexpete]

Have i missed how much weight the OP would like to carry on the trailer?

 

[roscoe erf]

Have i missed how much weight the OP would like to carry on the trailer?

12t of feathers

 

[Xiaomi]

Have i missed how much weight the OP would like to carry on the trailer?

No. Probably around 10-tonne mark.

 

[Xiaomi]

depends if you want to retain the air braking aswell. Combine Hydraulic and air actuators are available to bolt straight on to where the air chambers were or just hydraulic kits are available. Budget about £50 per corner for hydraulic only, to retain the air it depends what’s already there in terms of pipes and load sensing valve etc

Would be looking for hydraulic only. To convert air to hydraulic what do you get for £50 per corner?

 

[Mur Huwcun]

Would be looking for hydraulic only. To convert air to hydraulic what do you get for £50 per corner?

These kind although they’re available cheaper than ebay but it’s an example
https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/2915759604...g=2386202&algv=DefaultOrganic&brand=Unbranded

or just fit these and be ready for air

TRAILER PNEUMATIC HYDRAULIC BRAKE ACTUATOR T30/30 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for TRAILER PNEUMATIC HYDRAULIC BRAKE ACTUATOR T30/30 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[mo!]

Would be looking for hydraulic only. To convert air to hydraulic what do you get for £50 per corner?

I've got a set of hydraulic rams that bolt on in place of air chambers that I bought for a project that never happened. (Bought a tractor with air).

Available at a bit less than you can buy new...

 

[Xiaomi]

Sorry to come back to this, but does converting truck chassis/braking to hydraulic tractor braking cause any issues with locking up? i.e. is there more of a need for load sensing?

 

[Andrew]

Depends how the actuators are specced. To be legal at over 40k it needs to be 50% braking efficiency. For that you need load sensing to stop it locking when empty. 40k or less you only need 25% efficiency so smaller actuators, less need for load sensing then.

 

[Mur Huwcun]

If you’re converting HGV you might aswell fit combined units now and an air load sensing valve, it may even be on the chassis. Guaranteed your next tractor will be on air and will be cheaper to do it now once than re do later on.

 

[Xiaomi]

Thanks - was worried that the empty trailer would lock up the wheels.
In terms of new tractor - the main machine has been renewed recently and has under 400hrs on it (40kph top speed). Not many hours put on annually so will do us a long time.
I'll safely say the trailer will go down the road before the tractor.

The initial plan was to weld the cross members onto the chassis. Am I correct in thinking that as the chassis is likely to be made from spring steel that flex would give the welds a tough time and would be prone to cracking? Be better to bolt it down onto the chassis rails.

 

[roscoe erf]

Thanks - was worried that the empty trailer would lock up the wheels.
In terms of new tractor - the main machine has been renewed recently and has under 400hrs on it (40kph top speed). Not many hours put on annually so will do us a long time.
I'll safely say the trailer will go down the road before the tractor.

The initial plan was to weld the cross members onto the chassis. Am I correct in thinking that as the chassis is likely to be made from spring steel that flex would give the welds a tough time and would be prone to cracking? Be better to bolt it down onto the chassis rails.

bolt it

 

[Xiaomi]

Can you work the brakes by connecting the actuator to the handbrake cables? Seen an axle which has car size brake lines right up to the brakes and an air actuator working the cables for handbrake.
Can the hydraulic lines be converted or would they need a regulator in order to prevent over braking?